Ernest L. Martin
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- This article is about Ernest L. Martin, an archaeologist. For the executed murderer, see Ernest Martin (murderer)
Ernest L. Martin was born in Meeker, Oklahoma on April 20, 1932 and died in January 2002. He became a controversial for his works on archaeology in Israel with respect to the Temple Mount, because he claimed that the site of the Al Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock incorrectly identified the true location of the Temple in Jerusalem.
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[edit] Background in meteorology
Ernest L. Martin attended grade and high school in Exeter, California and graduated from the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California which specialized in meteorology. From 1950 to 1954 he was a member of the United States Air Force who sent him to the University of New Mexico to further his education in meteorology and following this he then became a weather forecaster in Greenland. He spent another year working at Lowry AFB working in research and development for High Altitude studies at Denver, Colorado.
[edit] Ambassador College
During 1955 Ernest Martin became a supporter of the ministry of Herbert W. Armstrong and the Radio Church of God (later known as the Worldwide Church of God). He attended Ambassador College at Pasadena, California in 1958 and later transferred to the campus in England. He was ordained as a minister of the Radio Church of God in 1959 and continued with his studies at Ambassador College to finally earn an unaccredited Ph.D in education during 1966. From 1960 to 1972 he taught history, theology and elementary meteorology at the Ambassador College campus in Bricket Wood, England where he became Dean of Faculty.
[edit] Hebrew University
Between 1969 and 1973 Ambassador College entered into an alliance with Hebrew University in Israel which had been negotiated by Martin. This undertaking commenced a five years archaeological excavation near the Western Wall of the Temple Mount during which time he supervised 450 participating college students during the summer months. The program gained mention in a TIME magazine article.
[edit] Foundation for Biblical Research
Following the closure of the Ambassador College campus in England, Martin became Chairman of the Department of Theology at Ambassador College in Pasadena, California during 1973. In the following year he severed his membership in the Worldwide Church of God.[1] In 1974 he created the Foundation for Biblical Research in Pasadena where he remained as chairman until 1985.
[edit] Biblical studies
In 1985 Martin founded Associates for Scriptural Knowledge and became a member of various other societies. He was listed in 1997 through 1999 editions of Who's Who in America and similar reference works.
[edit] Author
In 1974 Martin wrote the first of five editions of The Tithing Dilemma of which over 100,000 copies were sold. It was this work which triggered the first of many major schisms within the Worldwide Church of God. In 1978 he first wrote The Birth of Christ Recalculated; in 1984 Restoring the Original Bible; in 1987 Secrets of Golgotha; in 1991 101 Bible Secrets; in 1985 The Biblical Manual; in 1996 The Star that Astonished the World; in 1999 The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot and in that same year The Essentials of New Testament Doctrine.
His work called The Star that Astonished the World received international attention by the press because it claimed to have identified the "Star of Bethlehem" during the birth of Jesus. Dr. Martin claimed that the familiar nativity story actually happened on September 11th.
[edit] Temple Mount Controversy
His work called The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot set off a firestorm of discussion because Martin asserted that both the Temple Mount was not the location of the last Temple. This work had even more importance due to the prior relationship between Martin and Herbert W. Armstrong whose editiorial in The Plain Truth magazine had been cited by Michael Dennis Rohan for his excuse to set fire to the Al Aqsa mosque during the 1960s. That act of arson has never been forgotten or forgiven by believers in the more radical interpretations of Islam and many terrorist attacks have been committed in the name of the Al Aqsa mosque.
The basis of this work began with the first visit by Martin to Jerusalem in 1961 when he first met Professor Benjamin Mazar and later his son, Ory, who informed him of his belief that the Temples of Solomon and Zerubbabel were located on the Ophel mound to the north of the original Mount Zion on the southeast ridge. Ory informed Martin that Professor Mazar had also inclined to this belief before his death. In 1995 Martin wrote a draft report to support this theory. He wrote: "I was then under the impression that Simon the Hasmonean (along with Herod a century later) moved the Temple from the Ophel mound to the Dome of the Rock area."
However, after studying the words of Josephus concerning the Temple of Herod the Great, which was reported to be in the same general area of the former Temples, he then read the account of Eleazar who led the final contingent of Jewish resistance to the Romans at Masada which stated that he Roman fortress was the only structure left by 73 C.E. "With this key in mind, I came to the conclusion in 1997 that all the Temples were indeed located on the Ophel mound over the area of the Gihon Spring".
From these conclusions Martin produced his book in which he asserted that the Temples of Jerusalem were located over the Gihon Spring and not over the Dome of the Rock. He wrote: "What has been amazing to me is the vast amount of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian records that remain available from the first to the sixteenth centuries that clearly vindicate the conclusions that I have reached in this book of research."
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
| Other pages related to Ernest L. Martin as a subject |
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Herbert W. Armstrong profile | Worldwide Church of God and Radio Church of God brief history of the church | Lost Ten Tribes links to related theories | 1975 in Prophecy! theory of two time cycles | The World Tomorrow radio and television broadcasts | The Plain Truth magazine history | Ambassador College and Ambassador University | Big Sandy history of Texas campus location | Bricket Wood history of UK campus location | Ambassador Auditorium history | Garner Ted Armstrong profile | Stanley Rader profile | Basil Wolverton profile | Art Gilmore profile | Michael Dennis Rohan and Al Asqa mosque arson | Bobby Fischer religious affiliation |
